


Settlement of Debt

by Cija



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cija/pseuds/Cija
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard and Alec and a job and a third party. Slightly AU-ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settlement of Debt

**Author's Note:**

> Written for das_kabinett

 

 

"I wish," said the man blocking their path, "to hire you for an evening's work."

"Oh yes?" said Richard. He was full of pheasant and wine and had an attractive young gentleman close at his side, and he was determined to be polite for as long as he possibly could.

"You will be well compensated for your services," the fellow said meaningfully. 

"Oh yes," Richard agreed. He looked like a shopkeeper; not like someone who could afford Richard's fees on a whim, or like someone who would have pressing need to hire him at all, for that matter. Beside him, Richard could feel his attractive young gentleman smirking. Something about those earnest eyebrows--he looked like a shopkeeper because he _was_ a shopkeeper, that explained it. Richard had bought a pair of gloves for someone from him once. Someone had coveted those gloves for months and been very pleased with them.

"I represent, I speak for a group of merchants who wish to employ you. But there is a complication.

"Oh,' said Richard," yes?"

"The person you are to deal with is," and here the man paused for cheap suspense, "--already dead!" He nodded importantly. "A ghost, in point of fact. Been causing trouble all up and down the street for weeks now. Bad for business, you can't imagine. Doesn't seem to have a favorite shop, in and out of all of `em. That's why we're hiring you jointly to take care of it."

"Right," said Richard, "right." The wine's warm glow was beginning to fade ever so slightly, and he resented it. Solid, barrel-shaped men with moustaches ought to keep themselves busy arguing about tariffs or harassing tenants or repairing carriages; they had no business to be out of their minds, or to bother him in the middle of a fairly delightful evening.

"By 'right', he means "no," said Alec helpfully, "but I believe in time he will allow himself to be persuaded. Permit us to confer amongst ourselves for a moment," and he caught Richard by the sleeve and pulled him over to some relative privacy. "Come on," he said. "Oh, don't look like that. No, seriously."

"Look," said Richard. "I've done jobs for the insane before. It's not a good idea. They think they know what they want, but they don't."

Alec rolled his eyes like a martyred saint. "What this _particular_ bewildered gentleman wants," he said, "is to give us money in largish quantities, in return for dispatching to the grave someone who is, if I correctly apprehend the situation, already dispatched thereto. What other income-producing activities have you got lined up for us, hmm? It's a slow month, you said so yourself."

"Well," said Richard, "it's not much of a challenge, is it. What's a ghost going to do, bleed on me? Well, obviously it's not going to bleed on me. If I believed in ghosts I wouldn't take the commission, any more than I'd duel the cat if someone paid me enough. It's degrading is what it is." 

"The cat would give you trouble," said Alec, diverted. "I've told it things about you, it knows your weaknesses. But no," he continued; "what I meant was, you should take the job to please me. Call it a present."

And because Alec had been set on goading him into something unwise for the past several weeks, and because this venture, however ridiculous, was likely to be less outright disastrous than whatever the next one might be, and because ghosts weren't, actually, a situation Richard had instituted an explicit rule about and thus had to maintain a reputation concerning, and because Alec had said _to please me,_ \--for all these unsound reasons, Richard turned back towards the fidgeting man to make a feeble show of cooperation.

"All right," he said, "look, seventy, not fifty, full payment up front, no spectators, and no discussing the job when I'm done. With anyone." That last part would probably put an end to it, he thought hopefully; half the point of engaging St. Vier was getting to point and say _look what I bought, look what I paid for._ Even for those not in possession of all their faculties. Though he supposed Alec would be after him to duel the translators of his philosophy books for linguistic incompetence next. But the man only nodded. "Come by after sundown tomorrow, then." 

"Just to be clear," said Richard, against his better judgment,"you are paying me to fight it, aren't you? That's what I do. If it's already dead, how do I know when I'm done? How is defeating it with a sword going to be any more useful than, I don't know, beating it at cards? Seeing as it's dead, I mean." 

"Oh," said his client with an insufferably mysterious look, "don't worry about that. Show up, issue the challenge, and the rest will take care of itself."

. "If you don't mind the question," Richard asked, wondering why he was bothering, "why do you need me in particular?"

"Oh," said his client. "It asked for you."

***

The kitten squeaked as he walked back past it. "Not good enough," Alec said regretfully. "One point for volume, no points for articulation." 

"Oh, leave it alone," Richard said lazily, "it won't be talking for another year yet, won't be reading your books with you for two or three. What's happening, what did they want?"

"It was a messenger," said Alec, "delivering this." He tossed a heavy pouch of coins onto the bed, along with a set of keys. "Now you'll have to go out there and do your job after all. Quiet the unquiet, and so forth." 

"Damn it," said Richard. "Well, you're going with me. It's cold out there, if I have to wander around empty shops delivering challenges to invisible creatures, you can suffer along with me. It was your idea to begin with."

***

"The handle's cold," Alec observed, "and yes, I am aware that it's winter. It's not that kind of cold. Here, try it yourself."

"Shit," Richard said, upon doing so, and retreated a few steps. 

"Yes," Alec said with great satisfaction. "There's something in there." 

***

"Look," Richard said, "you're a scholar, you remember the play you read me half of, with the ghost, right?"

His lover cast his eyes heavenwards. "You remember that. I shall faint from the shock of learning that you retain things read to you out of books. That last one I read to the cat, actually, as it has an appreciation for popular literature; you merely happened to be present in the room at the time."

"Right," Richard said, nodding. "What do you do about a ghost, then? What would we do in a play, for instance?"

"Do?" Alec asked, with a disbelieving stare that held no small amount of hidden pleasure. "What you _do_ is to placate them through blood, sacrifice, revenge, atonement, something like that. Obey their cryptic commands. Let them drag you down to hell. You don't recite a few magic words or stab them through their ghost spleens three times to make them go poof, if that's what you mean. `What do you do,' honestly." 

"I'm sorry," said Richard through gritted teeth. "If there's nothing to be done about ghosts, why did you want me to take the job?" Alec had been pushing and pushing these last few weeks, more than normally; something was going to give, something was going to break. It wasn't going to be Richard, but that left so many possibilities open.

Alec raised a shoulder and dropped it again. "I wanted to see what would happen." 

Richard shook his head, more to clear it than anything, and setting his hand on the door once more, made his way into the dark interior. Alec followed close behind him. There was a bit of light inside, not from the windows but from the figure that stood there waiting for them. The ghost was there waiting, and it held, not a sword, but a knife. "What can he have been thinking," Richard said in a rather abstracted tone. "Everyone knows I don't do women." His face was very pale, and his eyes were very bright, and his hand was on his sword-hilt.

Alec looked from the ghost to Richard and back again, without terror; rather, with the aspect of a child who has somehow suddenly, inexplicably, come in second in a contest, and thinks it sees a way to steal back the winner's prize. He opened his mouth, and Richard did not want to know what was going to come out of it, what he thought he had figured out.

"Get out of here," Richard said quietly. "Back up, don't turn around, don't say a word to her or to me. Now. This is not a place for you to be." He was not actually on the edge of losing control of himself, but Alec might perhaps think so. He hoped. He had never offered threats before. He saw Alec look him over, look at his too-tight grasp on his sword-hilt, see how his other hand might be shaking if he relaxed just slightly, take in the set of his jaw, the wideness of his eyes, and put it all as it were in his pocket for later. Here was Alec's present, then. He had delivered it after all.

The ghost tilted her chin and looked at Alec's face, and what was written all over it, the flushed cheeks, the bitten-back words. It spoke, then, to Richard only.

_Like looking in a mirror._

"No," said Richard, apologetically but with finality, and thank God, thank God, Alec was moving backwards, he had listened, he had left. "I'm sorry, but no, it isn't, really, I don't think." As the door closed, he loosened his grip on the sword, forcing himself to let go of it. Letting his arm relax, he waited for her to move towards him.

***

When the swordsman walked out from under the overhang of the doorway, his shirt was darkened and wet from collarbone to waist. He did not limp or stagger and Alec did not run forward to help him. "It's all right," he said, "she got what she came for, the job's done. We can go home."

"So," Alec said, masking shakiness with skepticism, "she wanted to stab you, but not kill you, and you let her?"

"Hit me back," said Richard, "yes, and yes. She wanted to make a point, that's all."

Alec pursed his lips, seemingly at a loss. "This makes you even now, does it? All settled up with your ghost friend?" To look at him, he had not forgotten a one of the awful things he had not said inside, only slipped them into his pocket too, for later.

"No," Richard said patiently. "We're not even, I'm not dead. Not dying, either. It's all right, though."

"And your sword arm?" Alec said, giving him a clinical look, not moving. "You'll retain the full range of stabbing motions, will you?" 

"If I'm lucky," Richard said, "which, all things considered, I have been, and if I get it looked after promptly, and if we don't stand here much longer, yes, I think so."

For a wonder, a snowflake landed precisely on the tip of Alec's eyelashes and waited there, not melting. You might think he was made of ice, no warmth in him at all. Richard looked at him a moment, heart held in a trap, breath caught in his throat, until Alec blinked and then sneezed, ruining it. "You'd better not be too badly hurt," he said. "You'll want to go out later, get me some brandy for my throat; I'm coming down with a cold."

 


End file.
